Sanctuary
by Charshee
Summary: It's quiet here. This is where they feel safe. He can almost forget she isn't his. (Just some fluffy stydia! I may actually add some more fluffy little ficlets. I hope you enjoy! I'd love it if you could leave me a review and tell me what you think!)
1. Chapter 1

There's something closer here than flesh on flesh. More intimate than just her heat around him. When he hears her sighs his heart quickens, he whispers his thoughts to her. Words. Words that didn't need order, or sense, or even to be said aloud. He did, anyway, though. He always needed his words. They were a safety net with everyone else, a babble of defense that kept people from getting too close. But she hears his words. Her mind is as quick as his. Her words are less jumbled, but to the outside world they are no easier to understand. He loves that she understands, and he'll never know how much it means that he listens.

Stiles hides a groan in her hair and relishes in the scent of her. Sweet, floral, comforting, and oh so familiar. When he was close to her it was hard to concentrate, the soul-cleansing smell that drifted from her dazed him. Now that smell brings a spark of lust with it. She's soft. Her hair is silk against his lips and her body yields to his touch without hesitation. Soft everywhere. Feathery soft lips tickle his neck, his fingertips sink into her skin that seems akin to satin. Most of all she's soft where he is not. Soft and warm and so very, very comforting. Tight around him and when he moves she becomes only tighter still. Squirming, moaning, needing him. Oh did he love to be needed.

He nuzzles in to her neck, teasing the flesh with his tongue. The delicacy of the skin there tempted him to sink his teeth in to her. He just had to get deeper. His finger tips sank into her backside as he increased the intesity of his thrusts. He had to hang on to her. Stiles has been drifting lately, but here with Lydia he feels as if someone has tied him to earth. She keeps him tethered to reality. Hanging on to his ankles and doing her best to weigh him down. The darkness embraces him, pulling him up and in to the void, and she anchors him against it's currents.

Outside of her, outside of this bed, everything is falling apart. But here he is safe. Here he cannot be reached by assassins, benefactors, or broken hearts. This is his happy place.

Lydia is his sanctuary. He remembers almost losing her. Each time it's happened a little bit of him breaks. He's not sure how many more parts he can lose until he becomes completely empty. He finds her lips in the dark, and she catches on to his desperation. Her fingers twist into his hair with just as much fervor as his kisses. She aches for him, he fills a gap that she hadn't realised was there. She's never felt this way before. Something Allison had said... You can't breathe until you're with them...

He feels the water on her face, and pulls away. Tears have welled in her eyes and rolled down her face, some reaching her cheeks and others tumbling down her temples and into her hair.

"What's wrong?" He's suddenly a little frantic, scared he'd hurt her.

"You always have to leave." She cries quietly. Tears of a fate she knows there is no avoiding. This is well practiced grief.

"Lydia, I'm not going anywhere." His comfort is an empty promise, though he doesn't know it yet. She smiles at this, lifting her lips to kiss him.

Lydia mutters against them, "You always say that."

* * *

Stiles wakes suddenly, tears blurring his vision. Beside him his nightly visitor had resumed her habit of appearing in his bed. He looks at her with guilt. He hadn't chosen that dream, it was one that had been with him since puberty. Lydia Martin wrapping herself around him and allowing the love he wished to show her. But here and now another girl shared his bed. A beautiful girl. A girl he likes. Really likes.

He can't say it though. It's odd. Surely love is easier to fall in to when you're doing it together? It's so simple with Lydia. He's never been able to lie about his feelings for her. Not to anyone. Even now, as another girl dreams beside him, not to himself.

* * *

Miles away the Banshee stirs, and tears splash onto her pillow.


	2. Chapter 2

It had turned out to be one of those nights again. Her bed was too warm for sleep, too empty for rest. She stood by the window, having thrown it open to bathe in the moonlight and feel the autumn air on her skin. She'd been dreaming of dark hair and dimpled grins. There are cracks in her soul, the grief leaking through like magma, ready to lay waste to anything around her. She just wanted one night without wondering. One night without a dream where she figured it out in time. Where she screamed before it was too late.

There was no one to hear her, but she covered her mouth anyway. The burning clawed at her throat, but what burst through her fingers was not a scream but a sob. This was simple, raw, and human. There was no scream, that song of death had been sung and there was nothing left to hold in. For a moment she can imagine she feels a hand on her back, strong and solid, holding her up. The flood suddenly subsides and her wet cheeks dry, sore and pink.

The curtains sway in a suddenly chilling breeze and she folds her arms around herself. It slinks into the room behind her, playing through her hair and whispering against the nape of her neck. She sighed, and bit her lip, suddenly hit with a wave of nasea. She dreamt of freezing tunnels, concrete and iron pipes creaking above her head. Sometimes It followed her, whispering like the wind in the leaves, all the things he'd destory. He muttered to her of all the life he would devour, pressing her into the bars of a concrete prison. His lip slid up the edge if her ear, teeth grazing skin. She shivered, confusing It with him again. A pang of longing and a stab of pain. It'd driven her to the breaking point, she was sure it would be her, and suddenly It had murdered her best friend.

"Lyyyy...dia..." It called, from somewhere deep out there in the darkness, but distance was nothing to a Banshee's ear. She shakes it off, and closes the the window firmly. Glad she'd asked Deaton for some tips in keeping the supernatural out. She returned to bed a little shaken, sure she'd felt unfriendly eyes on her for a moment. She pondered on whether chaos like that could ever truly be tamed. But the pillow is cool now, and her cheek welcomes the soft cotton against her stinging skin.

The Banshee doesn't want to admit how much she's been missing him. When they lowered the casket she found solace in his arms, face pressed into his chest and tears leaving mascara stains on his clothes. His tears were silent then, he holds steady until late that night. His anger squirms in his stomach like snakes, and his fingers make claws ready to tear his insides out. He drowns in his hatred for himself until he falls asleep. Some nights the guilt returns like this, oozing from his skin in clouds of emotion that tell the coyote that tonight she must not stay. Even wild animals know pain like that is best tackled alone. And the stink of such grief makes her squirm. She almost runs from him on those nights, overwhelmed with the humanity of it all.

Lydia tries not to consider that he has another to comfort his aching heart, to lick his wounds. Quite literally, she was sure, considering the coyotes mile-wide wild side. She could taste the bitter on her tongue and sighs at her own jealousy. It was only natural for him to move on. He was a teenage boy, a young man, One thing she'd always valued about Stiles and his fixation on her was that he made no demands. He loved her without expectation, just a decisive plan to wait until she felt the same way. She wasn't used to having her boundaries so respected, and now that his desire was in the past tense she realised she missed it. They'd become so close since Lydia was pulled out of the dark, but now he found his comfort in brown eyes rather than green. Now his love has found a new focus, and in the interest of kindness she kept herself distant. So distant that she had begun to slip away.

She tries hard to sleep, but jealousy is burning in the back of her head, she's sure she's turned green. How many Pack Nights has she sat through watching Kira and Scott's cutesy antics, Malia's inability to understand human PDA rules, and Stiles's unwilling to teach her? How many nights has she claimed the beanbag closest to the TV in her living room because it only holds one and that way she can't see the displays of affection behind her. It must be easier for Scott distract himself from the ache of having part of his heart chipped away, he finds relief in the fox's kind eyes and gentle smile. Lydia knows Allison would have wanted it that way, knows that her dear friend would never hold happiness against the one she loved.

"I'm not as strong as you, Ally." Lydia muttered into the darkness, "I can't be happy for him. I need him. I need someone. What am I meant to do without you?" She sobs herself to sleep, only aware of the slight weight at the foot of her bed and the illusion of a hand on her leg when unconsciousness begins to pull her under.

"It's going to be okay, you just watch, Lydia." The darkness of her bedroom seemed to whisper, before she fell into dream completely.


	3. Chapter 3

Stiles finds his skin still buzzing from the shock. He feels alive, so damn alive. Part of him may perhaps thrive off this. He'd been begging Scott to follow the tiniest lead to get his loved ones out of danger's way, of course, but there was a nagging just to solve the puzzle. Recently it had gotten a little more intoxicating to win the game of life and death.

He hadn't realised he was playing with such high stakes, however. It was easier when it was Malia so close to danger, her abilities and her proximity to their Alpha kept him from true panic. But it wasn't Malia he could hear choking back tears, it was Lydia. Lydia who was all delicate limbs and breakable bones. Bones that wouldn't not simply heal, blood that could so easily stop pumping.

"Hey, hey we're going to be okay. We're always okay. You know that." He whispers, his cheek pressing against the cold wall behind their heads.

"Not all of us..." The redhead sighed, her head lolling back. Hope was draining from her just as her energy was. Where he was filled with adrenalin her head was spinning. She'd hit the floor pretty hard, a lump was growing on the side of her head like none she'd ever sprouted. Should she survive this she knew she'd wake up sore from the inside out tomorrow.

"I'm so sorry, Lydia. I know. But we're going to be okay. I promise. I promise I will not let him hurt you."

"You're not exactly in a position to be of much help." She snorted, rattling her shackles at him. He doesn't answer, and she bites her lip, a wave of regret hitting her hard. Her words left a sour taste in her mouth. The voices didn't need to whisper for her to know she'd struck a cord. "Stiles, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that."

"It's true though, isn't it? Either I'm the klutzy human that needs rescuing or I'm a fucking monster murdering my best friends." His voice is cold. His jaw set hard to fight the tears prickling the back of his eyes as they threatened to fall. There was no reason to hide them. She couldn't see him. But his guilt kept his emotions deep under wraps lately.

"That wasn't your fault. You know that. That wasn't you. No one blames you. And anyway, you're the one that figures it out. All of it. We wouldn't be alive without you. We wouldn't have made it this far. I'm the one who gets herself into trouble. All I can do is tell you when something tragic has happened."

"Lydia, you're still figuring your abilities out. They've been more than helpful. I promise. And we're going to learn how they work, and then we're going to save everyone before anything tragic can occur." He fills his voice with a nauseating false cheer, but she appreciates the effort. Even so, it slips out before she can stop it,

"We? You mean you, me, and _Malia_?" This really isn't the time for this. She curses herself for the bitterness on her tongue.

"No... Just us... What's wrong with Malia?"

"Nothing. Just didn't know what you meant by "we". I mean, "we" used to mean you and me. But now..."

"Lydia Martin, are you jealous?" He laughs, despite their circumstances. The concept it just too ridiculous. He recalls the times he spent watching the sunlight catch her hair alight as it streamed through a classroom window. If it were all totaled up he was sure the time he spent watching Lydia Martin would outweigh the time he spent breathing.

"Stiles." It's a protest, and a plea. She can't deal with this right now, can't confront the things that had begun to drive a wedge between them, nor can she process the way that separation makes her ache. His name comes out as a confession.

"You don't get it, do you, Lydia? I've been waiting years to hear you say my name like that."

She takes a breath to reply, but a tug at her intuition proceeded the sound of Brunski approaching the door. Her heart pounds yet faster, adrenalin beginning to flood her system. Stiles clenches his fist, suddenly more than ready for this fight.


End file.
